These are my photographs - I grew up with steam-trains.
Taken at Germiston Yard
These are my photographs - I grew up with steam-trains.
Taken at Germiston Yard.
Today I am in a very nostalgic mood! Please join me remembering my [or your] childhood days. I grew up [partially] in Vereeniging, old Transvaal Province [now Gauteng Province], South Africa. My first childhood memories are from a railway camp near the Vereeniging town, called Redan. We were very poor my father could not even pay attention! But, having said that, I do remember the steam-trains because my dad worked on the railways as a train conductor. And I spent many days with him right at the end of the long line on coal trucks [ I think that is what they were called]. I try to remember because me and my family left Vereeniging 1963 about.
I can smell the steam and smell the root and soot. Hear the coaches on the tracks. When I served the State Attorney, we got a railway concession for holidays and we spent many nights on the "sleep over night trains." Please click on this link to listen to the trains. I bring pay a tribute to the photographers in South Africa who took these footage - I don't have the means to track them and ask permission to publish this - but I pay my respects. It is apparent that these guys must have spent many hours preparing to take these footages not to mention to locate the exact spots to photograph from. It is fascinating to sit in a car with them chasing a loco and to see how the photographer zoomed in on the wheels. Oh!!! those wheels!! Those wheels!!
You will see that some of the footage were taken by railway machinists themselves; at time they are hanging out of the loco to take footage of the wheels!!! I am listening to the sound of the link that I gave you. There are also footage of the insides of the loco while speeding along the long lonely stretches of the arid Karoo. Look at the black smoke pouring out - the passengers in the coaches had to contend with the soot and grime while eating "padkos." If you don't know what "padkos" means, it means special food-packages that you prepare for the long journey.
I do hope that you have enjoyed this lot - and if you happen to know the whereabouts of the photographers please forward that information to me to enable to engage with them.
